Retronyms

SUNDAY PUZZLE — We’re living in the past today, and that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes it’s good to take a trip down memory lane, to gambol through “what was,” to traipse among the lilies of yesteryear.

Now that I’ve run out of metaphors [Thank heavens. — Ed.], it’s time to discuss Tom McCoy’s Sunday crossword. But first, a definition:

Retronym (noun): A new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish the original referent of the existing word from a later one that is the product of progress or technological development.

Today’s Theme

The definition above is a wordy way of saying that, as time and innovation march on, we need new ways of referring to the original names for things so we don’t confuse ourselves. For example — and this is not in today’s puzzle — at one time, cloth diapers were the only kind of diapers that existed. However, we now refer to them as cloth diapers because someone eventually invented disposable diapers and we needed a term to distinguish the two items.

Mr. McCoy offers us a set of such retronyms, and I found myself fascinated by the concept. How often do you really think about things like this?

The theme is pretty self-explanatory because the wording of the clues leads you to the retronym itself. Once you have SNAIL MAIL at 33A (“System that was called 34-Across before the internet”), for example, you are directed to 34A in the clue, which is MAIL. Now that we have email, we need a term for postal mail and, compared to email, SNAIL MAIL is a fairly apt term.

Tricky Clues

■ 8A: I thought ADIEU was tricky for two reasons. It has the wordplay (“Leaving word” does not mean leaving a message, it means a word spoken when you take leave) and there is no French in the clue, so I wasn’t thinking in terms of a French answer. But the word ADIEU has sort of been adopted into English and I had the -EU at the end, so I made an educated guess.

■ 23A: “Giving heat?” in today’s puzzle does not refer to a furnace. It refers to ARMING someone with a gun, which is slangily referred to as “heat.”

■ 39A: Get to know your newts! An EFT is fairly common to crosswords (it has appeared in The New York Times Crossword 184 times), so it’s worth getting to know as a young newt, along with the Gila monster.

■ 15D: Wordplay alert! “Look for business?” can mean to try to drum up work for one’s self, but today we’re talking about one’s appearance. If you are a man, you would certainly wear a SUIT AND TIE in business.

■ 31D: Speaking of success in business, Mark CUBAN, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, makes an appearance today as part of some very clever wordplay: “Mark of success in business?”

■ 42D: “They go about two feet” is as tricky as all get-out, because it sounds like a clue about distance, but it’s not. “About” is another word for “around,” and I don’t know how you wear them, but SOCKS go around my two feet.

■ 49D: Maybe BOYS are a “Target demographic for Hot Wheels,” but that’s on Hot Wheels. Toy cars are for everyone.

Constructor’s Notes

For this puzzle, it was fun to brainstorm a long list of potential theme entries. Some of my favorite answers that didn’t make the grid were CONTINENTAL U.S., BRICK-AND-MORTAR STORE, SIT-DOWN RESTAURANT, and BLACK-AND-WHITE TV.

The grid might look pretty unconstrained, but in fact it does have the constraint that there need to be black squares above the E in BRITISH ENGLISH, the M in SNAIL MAIL, the N in REAL NUMBER, etc. (because, without these black squares, there would not be numbers everywhere that they are needed). Having eight black squares cemented in place from the get-go has a surprisingly large effect in terms of making the overall construction difficult. In general, flexibility in black square placement is very helpful in cleaning up messy grid sections, so having some black squares fixed in place can be a challenge.

As always, a huge thanks to Will and Joel for getting the puzzle into its final form!

A great hike along the path of the etymological past, Mr. McCoy. [Please stop. — Ed.]